


Doctor Who - Colepaldi RPF - When you forget

by Colepaldi-in-the-Tardis (Samstown4077)



Series: Colepaldi Collection [37]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M, Fanfiction, Fluff, Friendship, Humour, Memory Loss, Suppressed Feelings, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-17 03:31:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3513695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samstown4077/pseuds/Colepaldi-in-the-Tardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter losing his memory of Doctor Who and Jenna after hitting his head. She takes care of him for a bit and many questions arise for the man without a memory when he slowly discovers about the intense friendship of her and him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doctor Who - Colepaldi RPF - When you forget

**Author's Note:**

> I finally finished this one, and it was some sort of horrible challenge for me - because I taught a lot about not finishing it. I needed three attempts and I like some parts of it, but I am not sure about all of it and the end may come a bit harsh, but it has 4500 words and is way too long in my opinion. I combined my idea of writing of Peter losing his memory for a bit and an anon request of him/her discovering M-rated fics. I touched that part only briefly. I didn't wanted to write it into an embarrassing abyss. Rated: T. I am not a doctor, I have no clue how memory loss works and if it can work that way, it's fictional and please don't read when you don't like RPF and being a doctor who knows how memory loss works ;).

 

It had been one of these days on set, with a lot of running and shouting and some little explosions. All the usual business and then he ran against a narrow metal door frame. He had blacked out immediately and when he woke up in the hospital they had brought him, everything seemed to be fine. A bump on the head and a slight headache - nothing he couldn’t take.

Steven came in and they greeted each other happily. Steven was his boss, some sort of. He knew he worked for him, some sort of. And then this young woman came in. Brown hair, small, and her face - all eyes. Oh, yes, he would remember long those big brown sad eyes. She seemed so very worried, but when she caught his gaze, she smiled and he smiled because it seemed her worries were gone. She stepped up to his bed, and grabbed for his hand, pressing it and he found it very pleasant and without thinking his thumb trailed over the back of her hand.

“For a second, I thought, you never wake up again!”

It was the way she had looked at him, the way little wrinkles had built up around her eyes when she smiled at him, what told him, he should remember something important. And that was probably the point it got complicated.

Because he had no clue who she was. 

First she was confused, then she was worried and in the end she found herself sitting in her car and being angry. How could he? How could he forget her? It was just a damn bump on the head, not a flipping car crash - god beware.

It was actually no big deal, even it had looked very gruesome - let alone the sound that had emerged when his head had collided with the metal.

How could he forget? He remembered everything. Himself, Steven, other colleagues, but not her and even he remembered the show, he did not remember the part he was in.

“Doctor Who?” he had pointed at himself.

Momentary memory loss they had diagnosed after they had ran a lot of tests and scans. No injuries, nothing. The doctor was very insistent that Peter would remember eventually, sooner or later.

Why he only had forgotten about the show and Jenna, he couldn’t tell.

“There are reasons, we probably never will know.”

She knew she shouldn’t be angry, but she was, she couldn’t help it. She wasn’t angry with him, more with what ever ruled this world. She was his best friend on set, they had spent day and night together when they were filming. And now this, all memories, all the laughter, the fun, the very important moments between them - gone. What if he never would remember again?

He could sense her sadness. She smiled - one of those sad smiles. Not that it was his fault, although maybe it was, he couldn’t be sure. There was surely a reason why he had forgotten about two certain parts in his life. He tried to remember when they had let him stay one more night in the hospital.

Staring at the ceiling, he pictured her face and tried to find a connection, a memory they had shared, but there was only blackness and it was depressing and exhausting and then he had fallen asleep.

The doctors had told him, that everything was fine with him - except one thing of course. He was fit, in best health and they guessed he would remember in a day or two when the swelling was gone back. Also he was able to hear the tiny whiff of doubt in their voices, he ignored it, kept quite and smiled - one of those smiles.

What to do now, she had asked the doctor and they advised; Peter should spent some time with her. Somewhere there must be a trigger that would bring his memory back.

“A trigger?”

A smell, a sound, something that brings back a memory. And when there was one, others would follow. He remembered already, they had told her, subconsciously.

“What do you mean?”

They told her he had referred to her as  _“the 5 foot 1 lass with the round face”_  and for a second she thought about killing him for it. He recited the show, the parts he had forgotten about, so his memories must be somewhere in his head. What else she could do as to take him home to his apartment and make him and her some sandwiches?

With fumbling hands he had asked if they could watch one of the episodes he was in and she had said yes, getting out her IPad to watch _‘Deep Breath’_.

He knew the show, he could remember growing up with it, so he knew about regeneration and the Tardis and the companions, but what he saw on that screen was all new and strange.

He - the Doctor? And she - the young woman at his side - his companion? He saw himself running around on the screen and it was to him as he followed a stranger having adventures. Like when he was young again, and he had followed his favourite Doctor fighting Daleks and Cybermen.

He didn’t ask any questions and he could clearly see that this confused Jenna even more, but she didn’t press him, just looked at him with worries and sadness and little wrinkles built up on her forehead and with tired eyes.

In the end she fell asleep half the way in of the episode, her head resting on his shoulder and he was paralysed of what to do.

“Jenna?”

He concluded she hadn’t slept much the night before and so he decided to lift her up from the couch and carry her into his bedroom. Her embrace around his neck became tight and she buried her nose into the crook of his neck, loudly sighing and breathing in. It sent a shiver down his spine and that was the first time he scolded himself for forgetting her.

 _There must be something_ , he thought. A reason.

When she was safe and sound wrapped up in his bed and blankets, he watched her sleep for a minute and then returned to the IPad.

Pressing the “ _fast forward”_  button he rushed through the episode and only went back to normal when he reached the last conversation between him and Jenna - well, the Doctor and Clara.

_“You can’t see me, can you?”_

He watched the last minutes three times, only to be sure. He couldn’t see himself right now, he would hopefully in a few days or maybe already in a few hours, but he could see her, the way she looked at him.

Then he wandered around in his apartment. Not that he had forgotten about it, and yet it felt new to him. He browsed through the few books he had - he knew he had many more in London. All about art and one Doctor Who Annual. And then there was a stack of Moleskin notebooks. His drawings and scribbles. One he pulled out, was filled with a lot of Doctor Who stuff but also a lot of other things. Redrawings of some famous paintings. People he had maybe met in the streets or on set. There was one sketching of the Teller from  _“Time Heist”_  with Jonathan (PSI) and Pippa (Saibra). It made him smirk seeing all this. It seemed he sketched a lot about the episodes he was shooting at the time.

The aliens and the actors, the Tardis from time to time mixed up with older versions - it seemed he slowly built his own version of the Tardis in his sketchbooks. He had also sketched Steven aside with a Dalek. He chuckled.

And then he sensed something was odd with all the sketching and all the notebooks. Something was missing. Someone was missing. There was not one picture he had drawn of Jenna. Not one. This was the moment something flashed up in his mind, a scene where he was sketching her. So vividly that he was sure it was not only an imagination.

He tried to grip for the memory in his head, to pull it closer, to finally find a string to start with, something that would lead him into the depth of his blurred mind. Failing to do so, he bumped his forehead slightly against the wooden board of the shelf, huffing, “Damn!”

And then he remembered, something he had seen just half an hour ago. Another notebook on his bedside table. Quickly he turned around and tiptoed into the bedroom. Jenna was still deep asleep and didn’t made any move when he came to an halt by her side. Indeed, there on the little table was another stack of books. A crime novel, a magazine and under all this, another sketchbook. He took it and sneaked back out.

Jenna. Her eyes. Her profile. Jenna by the Tardis. Jenna sitting in her stool drinking coffee. It was all Jenna. The whole damn thing. Why? Why all this?

_“Please, just see me.”_

This was a puzzle he was not sure if he should start to solve in the state he was. The man he was, before his little accident, seemed to be a riddle now. Why would he hide a sketchbook? Well, the thing contained the answer itself. What was none existent in the other books was way too overwhelming in this one. He turned around, looking the way the bedroom was. This woman seemed to have done something to him.

The question was, was she aware of it? Did she know anything about it? She had looked so sad in the hospital, but had greeted him with such intimacy that he was sure they were close. The other man, Steven, hadn’t reacted in any way to her  _“touchy feely”_ attack and so it seemed that this was something normal for the others around them. He needed to know more.

He settled back down onto the couch and used her IPad for some researches in the internet. He googled himself in connection with Jenna and even he knew that was maybe not the best idea, he felt the burning urge to do it. He would forget about this, when he would remember, that’s what the doctors had told him. Whatever he would discover, would be sealed away again.

How much timed passed? He couldn’t tell. He found himself reading his own bio, even he knew the most, then he read Jenna’s and then of course he made researches about the latest Doctor Who series. He watched the video that showed when he had been revealed as the Doctor. And he had no memory at all about this.

Not long after that he found out about the World Tour and once he had discovered about it, he found plenty of video material - promo clips and most of all interviews Jenna and he had given. He must have watched at least half an hour of short clips, when he grabbed for the notebook again.

Was this a coincidence? Was this real? Or were it only some spirits of The Doctor and his companion Clara that seemed to shine out of them both?

It hadn’t taken him maybe three repeats of the final scene in  _‘Deep Breath’_ but he was aware that a blind person could see the affection the Doctor had for Clara and vice versa.

“To hell, with  _‘not your boyfriend’_!” he had uttered when the clip had ended the third time.

He read a couple of interviews, about chemistry and about some esprit between him and Jenna. And he read the interviews about  _“no hanky panky in the Tardis”_  and  _“Papa Nicole moments”_ and he frowned at his reflection in the little screen asking himself if he had lied or if they just misinterpreted something.

There was not only affection between the Doctor and Clara, there was a clear affection between him and Jenna, and he didn’t know what to think of it, and most of all what to do about it.

Was it his business? His, the man who had forgotten. The man who would remember sooner or later, only to forget this little turmoil of his. Why had he forgotten in the first place? Why does someone forget about a woman he obviously cared so very much about?

He lay back on the couch, the IPad on his chest, knowing he wouldn’t come to an answer, not without Jenna who was still asleep. So he decided to care a bit more about Doctor Who and find an answer why he had forgotten about the show he loved so much in his childhood. When he would find one answer he might would find the other too. It let to more videos about the Doctor and Clara - people called it  _“Whouffaldi”_ and called it  _“ship”_ , what he found odd, but what did it matter.

People put much effort into this little video clips and he realized he enjoyed watching them. And then one of the videos said in the description that it was based on a fanfiction that could be read in some kind of forum.

And this was the moment he got lost in fanfiction about the Doctor and Clara. He knew he now moved on a mine field and tried to stay out of certain fics, stayed with the adventures ones and the humours ones, but in the end the inevitable happened.

_‘Clara brought her arms around his neck, pulled him down and kissed him. The Doctor was shocked, and stiffened, his arms fluttering in the air, but then he slowly settled into the kiss. Her tongue brushed over his lower lip and the Doctor opened up to her. Falling down into her bed, they found each other tangled up sharing a passionate kiss.’_

“Peter?”

Peter probably had never jumped up from a sofa in his whole life that fast. His hands wildly grabbing for the IPad what almost fell down to the floor while his feet tried not to trip over his coffee table. It must have been a very amusing picture for Jenna, who had finally woken up.

Pressing the IPad to his chest, he stared at her - hair disheveled and he could feel his face was red from embarrassment.

“Are you alright?” Jenna examined him from tip to toe, finding Peter looked a bit disturbed and as if she just had caught him in the act. What ever  _“the act”_  had been.

“Yeah,” his voice went all haywire. “You startled me.”

They both glanced toward the IPad in his arms, he was literally clinging to. For a second he brought it behind his back, only to decide that this was childish. He settled it down on the table.

“I was … reading … something,” he bit his lower lip and smirked flustered.

Jenna only nodded, “How long was I asleep?”

“A few hours,” he stated, glad she didn’t press him for further details of his readings. “I … I carried you into your bed. .. I mean into my bed.”

“Sure you alright?” she walked around and sat down.

“I just went a bit lost in the Doctor Who fandom,” he sat aside her. “That’s all.”

“You went lost in the Doctor Who fandom?” she turned toward him, then glancing at the IPad. “Why is this concerning me?”

“There is no reason to be concerned,” he answered slightly offended. “I thought it was a good idea doing some researches about series eight and you and me.”

“You mean the Doctor and Clara, don’t you?”

He blinked a few times before answering, “Yes.” It was not a lie technically.

“So?”

How could this woman command him with only one word? “You win. I watched dozen of video clips about  _“Whouffaldi”_  - what ever that means. And I read a few stories.”

“Wait! What? You read…,” she smirked into her lap. “You mean fanfiction. You read fanfiction?”

“Only the harmless ones,” he assured and they both glanced toward the IPad on the coffee table.

The knowledge slowly settled in what had made him jump from the couch in embarrassment. They both reached for the gadget, and Jenna was quicker than him.

“Jenna, no!”

“‘ _Falling down into her bed, they found each other tangled up sharing a passionate kiss. Clara slowly unbuttoned the white shirt of the Doctor, placing little pecks down his throat toward his chest. The Doctor groaned in anticipation-’_ Only the harmless ones?” she had trouble to keep her heart beat in place and the blood out of her ears.

“Alright! It was an accident!” he blurted. “Check the history. I read adventures and humour.”

“Peter, you shouldn’t read that.”

He laughed, “There are good stories. About adventures and a friendship. Have you ever read them?”

“Even if I had the time, Peter,” she took a long pause to inhale air. “You never can be sure, not to find yourself reading this… the other stuff. People shall write about it, but I better not read it.”

 

Moments of silence arose between them, and Jenna thought about leaving, when Peter placed the IPad out of her hand back on the table, “The Doctor loves her, right?”

“What?”

“Clara? In one episode you say  _“I love you”_ to the Doctor,” he began.

“She says it to Danny Pink,” she corrected him, unsure where he would go with all this.

“No, to the Doctor, you stated this yourself,” he rose an eyebrow at her. “I saw the clip.”

“Is this going somewhere?”

Peter huffed, “I was only wondering,” his right hand landed onto the table aside the sofa, on which he had placed the moleskin with Jenna’s drawings. “I can’t remember playing the Doctor. I can’t remember Clara, and their relationship. I only have what I see now. I’m the actor of the Doctor - on better days I am. Today I am only the man who-,”

“-forgets,” it was almost inaudible, a whisper covered with sad awareness.

He turned toward her with his head, “I can’t remember you. I tried, but there is nothing, except,” he rose one finger, stopping her from interrupting him, “except a certain feeling inside of me. Faint but it’s there. Telling me there is something. Something important. And…”

“And?”

“You know, because  _you_ remember,” he now faced her with all of his body, one knee resting on the couch. “I saw this deep disappointment in your eyes in the hospital.”

“Wouldn’t you disappointed too, when one of your best friends, would have forgotten about you?” her right hand grabbed her left thumb in an angle, that Peter was for a moment afraid she would break it. “It’s not just a person you forget. It’s about memories. Who can tell, that you really will remember again? Everything?”

“Tell me. Tell me about memories and you and I,” he stood up and walked over to the window.

“And that is, what I can’t.”

Half angry half disappointed he turned around, his hands slamming down the sill, while his eyes were closed, “What if I need to know.”

“You said you are confident that you will remember,” she watched his back, his heavy breathing. “So what is there to know, when you will know anyway in a few days.”

He whirled around, “Can’t you see? Can’t you understand? It’s like… like regeneration.”

“Like regeneration?” she raised an eyebrow at him.

“When the Doctor regenerates he-,”

“-He usually crashes the Tardis.”

He smiled over it, licking his lips, quickly nodding, “He forgets - for a while. He forgets who he is, and what makes him. And he needs help. And right now I need your help.”

Jenna sighed, scratching her temples with her fingernails and considered the situation. She couldn’t tell him about this almost kiss in the break room a few month ago. Or the accidental one while they shot the Christmas Special. The one time - only a few weeks ago - when they were shooting in this old villa and he had comforted her after her nightmare. Or the night of the blackout.

Fond memories she couldn’t simply open up like a book to tell him about, because that was something they never did. They didn’t talk about their twisted feelings and the complicated happenings between them. If only between the lines, and that was just too exhausting and they had too much to do on set that they - someday - had decided in agreeing silence, to live in the moment without discussing  _‘this’_  too much.

On good days that was what it was. On bad days she mused over the thought, if they only did this because they had made themselves comfortable in not asking questions and in not pressing for verities. On the other hand, if one of them would, the whole fragile cosmos they were in would probably collapse in a glimpse.

She left the couch and walked to his book shelf, examining one of his sketch books. “But you don’t know me,” she raised her head, the book still in her hands. The Tardis core engraved with a thick dark pencil into the side she held open.

His hands pushed him away from the window. “You are Jenna!” he laughed out loud. “You are 28. Born in Blackpool. You are my companion in this show - I have forgotten too, just a reminder - called Clara.”

“All of this is my Wikipedia bio, Peter, everyone can tell me this,” she said with a smile and a shrug, her thumb stroking carefully over the page before placing the book aside, only to get another one out. Peter’s eyes were fixed on her, she could feel it, but she didn’t dare to look up to meet them. Browsing through the pages she played for time - they couldn’t have this conversation. Not with him in this state.

He watched her turn the pages, one by one, seeing her eyes flicker quickly over each side. Sometimes stopping, admiring one of his drawings, then again the paper flew from the right to the left in a manner of eagerness. The first intention was to play for time, then Jenna had been absorbed by the drawings only to slowly realize the obvious that was hidden in the pages - by its screaming absence.

All four notebooks she browsed through and then she stared at him, fine lines frowning, her eyebrows twitching in concentration when she formed the question she needed to ask in her head.

“Alright, just one question,” she stacked the books unnecessarily before shoving them back into their old place. “Without wanting to sound too egomaniac, but there is not one drawing of me in it. And you have drawn everyone on set. Even  _“Razz”_.”

“Who is _“Razz”_?”

“The very ugly dog from Susan, our makeup assistant,” she waved with her hands a bit in the air, as if to tell him, it was not necessary to remember this. “Not. One. Drawing.”

Why would her friend not draw her. The man who always draws.

“Coincidence?” Peter smiled, walking over to the table by the sofa, taking the sketchbook in his hands so that Jenna could clearly see it. “Do you know what I think?” his fingers grazed around the harsh edges of the leather book where the paper was.

He stood in front of her, holding up the thing, hesitating for a moment. He was about to betray himself and he couldn’t say if his other self would appreciate it.

“To hell with …  _‘not your boyfriend’_!” it earned him a tense and concerned look. “That is what I thought, when I finished _‘Deep Breath’_ ,” his lips curled into a coy smile, reaching for one of her hands to hand the book finally over.

She wanted to tell him, he should take it back, that it was not hers to know about the book, but he didn’t let her. Peter pressed it hard into her palm, raising a finger to assure her that it was important to him, to know about it - no matter what the other Peter would say to it.

With whom she wanted to argue? The curiosity found quickly the upper hand over her worries and with one last glance at him she opened it. It was the moment she stopped breathing for long seconds.

Studying her face while she browsed through the pages that all inherited a portrait of her, he gave her some room.

“I think,” he said softly after a while, “he is very dearly fond of her.”

Her eyes were still on the page, flickering over the drawings and some half finished sketches but he had all of her attention.

“One could say,” he shoved his hands over the fabric of his sofa, observing her out of the corner of his eye while she closed the book. Her hand holding the book, dropped to her side, watching him, his face with an expression she had seen once - long ago. A sad smile. Facing her, the corners of his mouth twitched up ever so slightly, “he is besotted.”

They locked eyes for a few seconds, before he raised his voice again, “Of course … he will never tell, because of reasons.”

Biting the inside of her lip, she began to nod, turning around 360 degrees and raised the notebook, “So it’s good, that his companion is a clever one,” she held it out back to him and when she was sure he had it, she added, “and that she knows. From the beginning.”

So many things he wanted to say, about something he had forgotten. “I shall rest. Finish up this regeneration.”

Her lips pursed at his comment before crinkling up into a smile, “I’ll come back later, and check for you, yeah?”

“You must!” he chuckled. “I am planing on getting ginger.”

“Uh, don’t change too much,” she slipped into her coat, the door handle already pressed down.

They knew they wouldn’t see again. “Just a bit,” he smirked and let her go, still holding the collection of drawings in his hand.

He felt tired afterwards and had a massive headache, he knew he needed to rest and sleep of the circumstances. And that’s what he did. When his head hit the pillow he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep - for hours.

When he woke up he remembered. He remembered being on set and bumping his head and that’s it. Why was he in his apartment and why was it six in the evening on a Wednesday? He groaned, slowly standing up to get to the kitchen for some water. Everything after him blacking out was a blur, filled with shadows and ripped apart sentences. He tossed down onto the sofa, rubbing his tired eyes till they hurt. His eyes wandered around in the room to check if something was off, but everything stood in the same place, except one thing. In the middle of the coffee table was one of his sketchbooks positioned in a way it wasn’t missable.

“What the…?” he reached for it, already knowing which it was, and opened it.

On the last page he found a new sketch. Made by him, he knew his way of drawing. The thing was, he couldn’t remember doing it. It was rough and done in a hectic way, showing two people standing in front of each other. A man and a woman. Oddly composed with a cyberman and a Dalek. He needed a second to understand, but when he realized that the man was handing over a book to the woman, knowledge settled in. There was date under it, the one of today and in his typical handwriting there was title scribbled underneath.

 

> _‘When you forget about the things you love’_
> 
>  
> 
> _ _

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you may think I should have went on, letting Jenna come back and let them have a talk, but right now I can't write that. But I'll think of it later. And add a second chapter. Thanks for the read. Every comment on it is welcomed.


End file.
